Music
Music
idea
True musical virtuosos are minimalists who put roll before rock
Musicians like Muddy Waters and Charlie Watts played fewer notes than showoffs like Jeff Beck, but they were the right ones
by Mike Edison
Pleasures and pastimes
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Feel free to stop striving: learn to relish being an amateur
When I rekindled my relationship with the piano and tapped into my inner amateur, I discovered a quiet room of my own
by Xenia Hanusiak
Music
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Music is a philosophy, rich in ideas that language cannot say
Musical thinking offers a means for composing our lives and a philosophical foundation that embraces both sound and silence
by Xenia Hanusiak
Music
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Bob Dylan turned American folk traditions into modern prophecy
Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’ is the first truly modernist folk song: it reworks tradition into a prophetic warning
by Timothy Hampton
Music
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Can you ‘feel’ the music? You’re probably an empathetic person
People who are more empathic toward others are also more likely to have more feeling for the emotions communicated in music
by Benjamin Tabak & Zachary Wallmark
Music
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The jazz singer’s mind shows us how to improvise through life itself
Be more jazz: by letting go and embodying the present, you can learn to transform the mundane into the transcendent
by Melissa Forbes
Music
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Bach’s piano music is intimate precision and Homeric epic in one
A hero on a journey; a circular movement; a melancholy of homecoming: why Bach is an epic poet in the Homeric tradition
by Dan Moller
Music
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What is it about musical hooks that makes them so catchy?
From hummable riffs to striking lyrics, the catchiest hooks tell us something about the limits of human attention and memory
by Tim Byron & Jadey O’Regan
Music
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A musician with sensory overload shows there are ways to adapt
When a musician’s senses are overwhelmed by music that’s too loud or stimulating, there can be another way to play
by Neesa Sunar
Artists and art history
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Is the attunement of abstract art and music more than a metaphor?
How does the abstract art of Kandinsky and Klee imitate the meaning and emotion in the music of Shostakovich and Bach?
by Michelle Liu
The body and physical health
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How the noises of a hospital can become a healing soundscape
Noises pervade and create the hospital environment. How could they be transformed into a soundscape for care and healing?
by Victoria Bates
Communication and language
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The allure of cosmopolitan languages to courtiers and pop fans
The song Despacito tells a truth about cosmopolitan language, or the ‘mistress tongue’ – we desire it before we know it
by Karla Mallette